Francis Shaeffer , a noted christian theologian and philosopher, wrote a book about abortion and the culture of death,in 1979. He co-authored it with C. Everett Koop, who was later to become the surgeon general of the United States .The book was called Whatever Happened To The Human Race ?.

The book warned us of the horrible cultural consequences to come as a result of the rejection of the Christian consensus, in favor of a humanistic relativism. Ideas have consequences .

Shaeffer cautioned us that our culture was merely coasting on a christian memory, enjoying the residual trappings of the christian culture, though long having abandoned Christ himself.

Concepts which have enriched western civilisation such as the sanctity of life, the dignity of the individual, a civil society, justice based on fixed principles came directly out of the christianity that the west embraced for a thousand and a half years. He warned that in the the jettisoning of our christian consensus, these concepts also cannot survive, having lost their basis.

In our time, humanism has replaced Christianity as the consensus of the west. This has had many results, not the least of which is to change peoples view of themselves and their attitudes toward other human beings. Here is how the change came about. Having rejected God, humanistic scientists, philosophers and professors began to teach that only what can be mathematically measured is real and that all reality is like a machine. Man is only one part of the larger cosmic machine. Man is more complicated than the machines people make, but is still a machine, nevertheless. (Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

I have been thinking about Schaeffer and his warning, in the light of the horrifying revelation that came out of Philadelphia recently. A late term abortionist, Kermit Gosnell is being charged with 8 counts of murder for botched abortions that resulted in the death of a mother.

from a Life News.com article

Pennsylvania-based abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who is responsible for killing a woman in a botched legal abortion last November, has been charged with murder.

Gosnell was the focus of FBI raids last year and his medical license was suspended and his abortion facility, Womens Medical Society Clinic, was closed down. Authorities found filthy and deplorable conditions along with a collection of aborted babies dating back 30 years.

Now, District Attorney Seth Williams is expected to detail charges today that he will file against Gosnell, the 69-year-old abortion center owner who killed Karnamay Mongar in a failed abortion. Gosnell was arrested and charged with eight counts or murder in the deaths of Mongar and seven infants allegedly killed with scissors after their birth. The arrest came affecter a grand jury investigation.

Where do such monsters among us come from? How is it that they are ever given a liscense to practice medicine and how do such cesspools evade public exposure? Schaeffer warned us long ago,

..because the Christian consensus has been put aside, we are faced today with a flood of personal cruelty. As we have noted, the Christian consensus gave great freedoms without leading to chaos  because society in general functioned within the values given in the Bible, especially the unique value of human life. Now that humanism has taken over, the former freedoms run riot, and individuals, acting on what they are taught, increasingly practice their cruelties without restraint. And why shouldnt they? If the modern humanistic view of man is correct and man is only a product of chance in a universe that has no ultimate values, why should an individual refrain from being cruel to another person, if that person seems to be standing in his or her way?

Gosnell is the current face of the culture of death, the logical outcome of the cultural upheavals of the 1950′s and 60′s. The callous disregard for human life, the merciless and inhumane treatment of baby and mother, the bloody scissors and the misnamed Womans Health clinic which was literally a septic mess, are the logical conclusion of the world view that gave us abortion.

Gosnell has not emerged out of a vacuum, there are many who deserve credit for this amoral monster. Start with Roe versus Wade, an activist supreme court, The Democratic party which has made infanticide one of its planks, Playboy magazine and the sexual revolution, the pro-choice movement, Hollywood with its glamorization of immorality and its championing of abortion and a host of other constituencies which have devalued the sanctity of life in our nation for forty plus years .

We in America have recently passed the 53 million mark of American abortions, it is fitting that our Holy God has seen fit at this juncture to expose Gosnell. It is as if He is still warning us of what we have become and of the certainty of judgement to fall on us.

Gosnell is just the tip of the iceberg, there are and will be others plying their trade among us, preying on the ignorant, the unprotected and worse of all, the most innocent and vulnerable of all, the unborn.

Jesus warned us, of the ultimate consequences of harming little ones, not only to Monsters like Gosnell, but to the cultures that spawn them.

At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.(Matthew 18:1-5)

We have rejected our Judeo Christian Heritage and are now eating the bitter fruit of it,Kermitt Gosnell is the visible face of this rejection of God. As God said in Proverbs 8, in the person of the Wisdom of God,

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